In Sunday’s paper, we take a look at the remarkable 10-year career of Felix Hernandez, the Mariners’ ace who has stayed loyal to Seattle. In the comments area of this post, please share your favorite Felix memories through the years. Were you at his perfect game in August 2012 or the very first King’s Court Night…

Here’s a much more up-close look at Felix Hernandez’s bullpen session this morning than we were able to show you the first time around when he was indoors. Today, he threw in the outdoor pen, with Mariners minor league catcher John Hicks forming the other end of the battery. Hicks gets a firsthand lesson on just how much movement there is to Hernandez’s offerings, as you’ll see early on in the video.

Mariners ace Felix Hernandez threw his latest bullpen this morning with minor league catching prospect John Hicks in Peoria, AZ.

Felix Hernandez walked out to the field after the rain halted on a cool, wet day here, took some warm-up tosses with bullpen catcher Jason Phillips, then headed to an indoor bullpen for a 33-pitch session that lasted about 10 minutes.

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Hernandez threw mostly fastballs with some changeups mixed in. The session drew quite a crowd of onlookers, between coaches, front office types, media and Hernandez’s Seattle teammates. They were all either inside the bullpen area or pressed along an outer fence watching.

“I was waiting for it for a long time,” Hernandez said of his first throwing session since inking a 7-year, $175-million deal last week. “Now that I feel good, I’m going to just keep going out there like normal and go with my routine and prepare for the games.”

Felix Hernandez played catch today and took part in fielding drills with his Mariners teammates for the first time since signing an historic seven-year, $175 million contract extension earlier this week. It’s been an exhausting, roller-coaster couple of weeks for Hernandez, who has been jumping in airplanes and starting and stopping his training ahead of arriving in camp last night.

The Mariners plan to take things slow with Hernandez, which is why he wasn’t out there throwing any bullpen sessions today like other pitchers have been doing since Wednesday. With the World Baseball Classic set to prolong camp this year, the Mariners say they aren’t in any hurry to rush Hernandez’s routine.

Hernandez is eager to get the process behind him and start playing baseball again. He figures it will take “a few days” to get into the swing of things, but is ready for it to begin.

“It’s a big thing for me, because it’s not in my mind anymore,” he said. “I’ve just got to go out there and do my best.”

Hernandez said the whole ordeal was “tough” — even the press conference, when he was overwhelmed with emotion after getting off a Safeco Field elevator and seeing team employees break into an ovation as he exited.

“It was hard not to be crying,” he said. “After the other day, in the elevator, with all the people there and to see my wife crying, it was hard for me.”

After a weekend of speculation about Felix Hernandez and the protective language the Mariners had inserted into his contract, we now get some detail courtesy of Jon Paul Morosi and Ken Rosenthal of Fox as to what it was. A tweet put out by Morosi not too long ago says the Mariners have negotiated a clause in which they would get an extra, eighth year tacked on to Hernandez’s seven-year deal if he suffered a serious elbow injury that caused him to miss significant time.

The cost of that extra season? $1 million.

That’s quite the bargain if you consider the Mariners will be paying Hernandez an average of $25 million per year through 2019.

There will likely be a signing bonus attached to that, meaning Hernandez will very likely be earning far more than the $20.7 million he was initially slotted to make this year in base salary and a pro-rated bonus. That will impact the budget short-term and could be a reason the Mariners did not make any significant payroll additions the past few weeks.

Payroll was at $85 million as of today, with the potential to go to about $91 million if players reach easily-attainable incentives. We’ll see how Hernandez’s new deal breaks down.

Zduriencik sent out congratulations to Hernandez’s agents, Scott Pucino and Wil Polidor, calling them “very professional” in how they handled negotiations.

“I think it’s a great thing for the Seattle Mariners, it’s a great thing for Felix Hernandez and we’re looking forward to this guy being here for a long time, obviously,” Zduriencik said.

Mariners GM Jack Zduriencik has declined all comment up until now on the fact he is close to a contract extension with Felix Hernandez. But today, for the first time, he acknowledged that there have been ongoing talks that he says are close to being concluded.

“It’s no secret that we’ve been in negotiations,” Zduriencik told media members moments ago at the team’s spring training facility. “We’ve had really good discussions with his two representatives…so, although I don’t have an update for you right now, I will say that I think things have been very positive. There has been a good tone to our discussions. And I hope, on a positive note, that sooner than later, we’ll be able to announce something. But anything of this magnitude, both in terms of years and dollars, just takes time to work things out.

“But I would say that, at this moment, it’s been real positive, and hopefully sooner than later, we’ll have something to say to you that will be significant.”

It’s a rainy day in Peoria, Ariz. as the Mariners wait for Felix Hernandez to arrive a day ahead of scheduled physicals for pitchers and catchers.

Sitting here at the Peoria Sports Complex awaiting the arrival later today of Felix Hernandez, who is still in negotiations with the Mariners over a long-term contract extension that will keep him here through 2019.

My feeling, from everybody I’ve spoken to the past 24 hours, is that something could be announced in another day or two.

The issues with Hernandez’s elbow and any potential long-term reprecussions from it can be dealt with by implementing new language in the contract. But as of right now, there is no short-term, immediate issue with the elbow. In other words, Hernandez is still the team’s No. 1 starter and is expected to be that on Opening Day. He’ll arrive here today to put stuff in his locker, then take a physical tomorrow along with other pitchers and catchers. It won’t have to be a complete physical like everybody else is doing because parts of it were already covered by stuff he had done in Seattle as part of this contract extension process.